EU must step up bloc-wide energy policy drive: Latvia

(WARSAW) - The European Union must step up efforts to create a bloc-wide energy policy, a move which is crucial for its member states' economic security, Latvia's President Valdis Zatlers said Tuesday.

"We all need a long-term energy policy, both a national one and a regional one, and one for the entire European Union," Zatlers told reporters during a visit to Poland, which is due to start its six-month term at the helm of the 27-nation bloc in the second half of this year.

"Security means a very simple thing: we should be sure that deliveries will always be available, and that no process will influence or stop them," he said.

Latvia and fellow ex-Soviet republics Lithuania and Estonia -- combined population 6.7 million -- are trying to ease their energy reliance on Russia dating back to the communist era.

They are pushing to bolster their and fellow ex-communist states' ties to the rest of the EU's energy networks, a process which has proven sluggish since the bloc expanded beyond the former Iron Curtain in 2004.

The goal, Zatlers underlined, is to ensure multiple energy suppliers for the whole EU.

"We have to think about the market. Because the mechanism that brings the price down and creates security is a multiple-choice market economy. Unfortunately we don't have a clear model in Europe," he said, noting that competing economic interests come into play.

"I never divide new members and old members, or big members and small members. If you want the European Union to function as an economic power, we should avoid these divisions into different groups," he added.